CSS Squib
Design plans for Squib | |
| History | |
|---|---|
| Confederate States | |
| Name | Squib |
| Operator | Confederate States Navy |
| Laid down | 1863 |
| Launched | Early 1864 |
| Fate | Scuttled, February 1865 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class & type | Squib-class torpedo boat |
| Length | 30 ft (9.1 m) or 46 ft (14 m) |
| Beam | 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) |
| Draft | c.3 ft (0.91 m) |
| Depth of hold | 3 ft 9 in (1.14 m) |
| Installed power | Condensing marine steam engine |
| Propulsion | Screw propeller |
| Complement | 6 |
| Armament | Spar torpedo |
| Armor | Boiler iron |
CSS Squib, also known as CSS Infanta, was a Squib-class torpedo boat that served in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War. Squib was laid down in 1863, and was launched in early 1864. Her design was a form of launch armed with a spar torpedo. Initially serving on the James River as a flag of truce boat, she snuck into the Union Navy anchorage at Hampton Roads and attacked the steam frigate USS Minnesota early on the morning of April 9, 1864. Minnesota was damaged but not sunk, and Squib was able to escape back upriver. At an unknown time in mid-1864, Squib was moved by rail to the Wilmington, North Carolina, area, where she served on the Cape Fear River. Records of her service at Wilmington after November 1864 are not extant, but she may have resupplied a Confederate fortification during the Second Battle of Fort Fisher in January 1865. The next month, the Confederates withdrew from Wilmington, and Squib was scuttled off Cape Fear.